Friday, 29 April 2016

Annie's
Jazz club, which is currently celebrating its 8th year of
'bringing London to you' (the 'you' in this case being the coastal
fringes of Essex) has a nomadic history. During the early days, it
was hosted by a variety of pubs, in and around Southend-on-Sea. In
recent times it has settled into an unlikely new home at the golf
club, in leafy, well-heeled Thorpe Bay, where it convenes every
Tuesday evening. It is a popular night out, drawing a lively and
appreciative crowd, with an average age sitting somewhere between 60
and 70.

A return
visit from Liane Carroll, a singer and piano player, who combines
vocal jazz with salacious anecdotes and asides, has sold out the
small venue. In the main bar, where a row of tall, plate glass
windows overlook a manicured fairway and some distant sand traps
bordering an adjacent green, every available space between the tables
seems to be occupied by a chair. Waiters, bearing steaming plates of
food, manoeuvre sideways along narrow trails through the shifting
labyrinth, squeezing past members of audience, who are advancing
single file, in snaking columns, in the opposite direction, towards
the bar.

Eventually
the room settles down and the lights are dimmed. Visible over a sea
of nodding grey heads, ensconced behind a small electric piano, in
front of a shuttered trophy cabinet, Carroll is a perpetually smiling
presence, her eyes closed and her head tilted back and bobbing in the
general vicinity of the microphone. She has one of those effortless,
malleable voices that sounds like it could go anywhere, and seems to
be carried along on an outpouring of joy, as she roams freely back
and forth between the lyrics of other people's songs and her own scat
singing.

Her sense
of mischievousness, which is not evident early on, gradually comes
to the fore over the course of three sets, or “trimesters” as she
calls them, aided and abetted by tall glasses of “cucumber water”
procured from the bar.

She pauses
in the introduction to one song to ask an elderly gentleman who is
struggling to remove a red sweater whether he is okay. “I've got
some spaceships,” she says, referring to what appears to be a bag
of sherbet saucers on top of the piano, which she playfully threatens
to flick at anyone in the audience who falls asleep. She recalls her
recent purchase of a Nutribullet: “It's supposed to be healthy but
so far I've only used mine to make pina coladas.”

With
Carroll the poignant and the absurd go hand in hand, neither one
encroaching upon the other. It's like watching a skilled high wire artist who
delights in throwing herself comically off-balance.

Her
plaintive rendition of Misty - a vulnerable and open-hearted
declaration of love - incorporates a lengthy instrumental break, the
piano settling into a holding pattern while she tells the following
joke:

(I am
paraphrasing here)

“My
uncle was walking past a club in Essex when this blonde girl comes
tumbling out through the front doors. She looks him up and down, then
she says:

'Why have
you got L and R painted on your boots?'

My uncle
replies: 'It's to remind me which boot goes on which foot.'

'Oh,' says
the girl. 'Is that why my knickers have got C&A written on
them?'”

(For the
benefit of American or millennial readers, C&A was a popular
clothing store in the UK back in the 80s and 90s)

Mixed in
among the standards are a smattering of relatively contemporary
songs. A brisk run through Donald Fagen's Walk Between The
Raindrops. Taking It With Me from the Tom Waits album Mule
Variations. You Can Let Go Now (subtitled by Carroll as “the
Imodium song”) originally by the soulful crooner and former Doobie
Brother, Michael McDonald.

More
anecdotes follow:

- A
childhood piano teacher who threatened to cut an inch off her hair
for every mistake that she made.

- A
nomination for Best Vocalist in the (then) impending Jazz FM awards.
She hasn't been invited to perform at the ceremony so doesn't fancy
her chances, but is going anyway for the canapés.

- Her
recent “adventures with dentures” that prompted her to cancel
what would have been a live performance on the BBC, due to her
concerns that her teeth might fly out of her mouth in front of an
audience of millions.

Before the
final set there is a raffle. All jazz clubs should have a raffle. It
cuts through any chin-stroking pretension and brings an air of
conviviality to the room.

Annie
(founder of the club) is summoned to the piano to duet while
protesting “I've got a Fisherman's Friend in my mouth.”

Cue more
raised eyebrows from Liane, who launches into another anecdote that
showcases her delight in sowing the seeds of chaos: During a lunch at The
Roslin Hotel earlier in the day, Annie's dog was mistaken for Liane's
and much admired by the staff.

“He's
not mine, “ she told them, before adding untruthfully “but I
looked after him while your mummy was in prison, didn't I.”

As the
evening draws towards its end, and with Annie's birthday a few hours
away, a cake is brought on stage and we all sing Happy Birthday.

Liane
introduces Seaside, the title track of her recent album, then,
at the last moment, decides to perform Bye Bye Blackbird instead,
inviting the audience to repeat her scat singing back to her,
which we pull off in a rather overly-mannered and straight-jacketed
fashion. She ends on a flourish, improvising lyrics thanking Annie
and the other guest musicians who have joined her on stage, the golf
club and everyone in the room for coming to see her play.

The
genuine applause that follows apparently merits an
encore.

“Oh, do
play Seaside, Liane,” begs one lady in the audience.

She
acquiesces and the evening concludes on a touching note.

Liane
Carroll will be playing three more times at Annie's Jazz Club in
2016, and, no doubt, at other venues across the country. This will
include a performance at the Proms where she will be collaborating
with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland.